![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_0310.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Oliver considers herself lucky that she didn\u2019t become a part of the national statistic of 55 people killing themselves every day. Overcoming her own suicidal struggles, Oliver feels that she must now advocate for those who need resources, in hopes of lowering those numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur strategy is to provide seamless mental health care in Canada by providing immediate resources that are useful for those suffering with mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n
DOTS advocates believe that there are certain mental illnesses that need to be taken seriously no matter the opinion of the person giving the assessment, and that in urgent matters it is crucial to give that support that the Canadian health care system currently doesn\u2019t offer. (There are also no support groups in Victoria to help people with anxiety or suicidal feelings.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s lots of information available about suicide prevention but when someone is in a critical moment they require simpler ways of accessing the help,\u201d says Oliver. \u201cDOTS has a panic button on our website for easy access to a crisis hotline.\u201d<\/p>\n
A life on the edge<\/strong><\/p>\n Oliver began having suicidal urges when she started to lose her logic.<\/p>\n She had just overcome a major head injury and was feeling rage as a side effect of the injury, and was also going through a divorce.<\/p>\n \u201cI was abusing my body with alcohol and pills to numb the pain I was going through,\u201d she says. \u201cEventually, I started thinking illogically and told myself that life wasn\u2019t worth continuing. I felt like I was a burden on others and that life would be better off for them if I wasn\u2019t around.\u201d<\/p>\n The last time Oliver was sent home from the hospital when she was in suicidal panic it was her fourth trip in. She asked the doctor to level with her and the doctor said that if they helped her she would become dependant on them and that it wasn\u2019t helpful for anybody.<\/p>\n \u201cThankfully, the last time I was sent home from the hospital, I passed out after a couple bottles of wine, before I could take too many pills,\u201d she says. \u201cI had planned to kill myself, because I thought it was all too hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Oliver\u2019s pivotal moment was when she woke up alive and realized that it wasn\u2019t completely her fault that she almost died. She had gone to the hospital for help and was turned away, and believes that if she received the help she needed she may not have attempted to commit suicide.<\/p>\n \u201cNone of my friends knew I was suicidal when I was,\u201d she admits. \u201cSuicide is such a taboo thing to talk about; without the medical support I needed, I felt like I was running out of options. When I realized it wasn\u2019t all my fault, I decided that I needed to change my life around and help others who have suicidal urges to do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Losing loved ones to suicide<\/strong><\/p>\n Carla Wormald has suffered on the other side of suicide. Wormald, who is on the DOTS board of directors, attended last year\u2019s DOTS rally because she was suffering from the loss of three people that were close to her. They had all committed suicide within the previous four years.<\/p>\n \u201cI was feeling guilt, loss, and helplessness through losing people in my life to suicide,\u201d she says. \u201cI went through counselling but didn\u2019t know how to direct my energy until I went to the rally.\u201d<\/p>\n Getting involved with DOTS helped Wormald self-heal. She learned how to cherish those who have lost their lives to suicide, be a catalyst for positive change regarding mental illness and suicide support, and help people create a better path for themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cOur society needs to advocate awareness, break down the stigmatic barriers, and let people come together to share their experiences with overcoming suicide,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n On a government and community level, Wormald says we need to make more support systems available, advertise the current support systems, and at least provide an emergency psychiatric bed at the hospital for suicidal people waiting for help.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of DOTS\u2019 biggest values is to create resources for those who have suicidal feelings or suffer from other mental illnesses,\u201d she says. \u201cI believe that at least two out of the three people I recently lost may still be here today if they were able to speak therapeutically about their suicidal feelings rather than repress their guilt and shame associated with committing suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n Rallying for life<\/strong><\/p>\n The DOTS rally will have petitions and notification letters for those political members of legislation who have an impact on changing the mental health care system on a municipal, provincial, and federal level. The rally will also feature a human chain, which really stands for something larger.<\/p>\n \u201cThe human chain part of the rally is symbolic for people coming together,\u201d says Wormald. \u201cIt helps us share stories, network, support each other through our past experiences, and support each other through what we are currently going through.\u201d<\/p>\n DOTS wants to remind those who are feeling suicidal, have felt suicidal, or have lost loved ones through suicide that everyone deserves to be helped through these issues.<\/p>\n For Oliver, it\u2019s all about holding on to a bit of logic.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my worst moments there was a voice talking to me constantly while I was awake and giving me nightmares in my sleep,\u201d she says. \u201cTry to keep positive, eliminate the stressors in your life, think logically, and speak with someone who can help you realize what is logical.”<\/p>\n DOTS Rally There are two major problems with treating mental illnesses. It\u2019s often invisible, and it\u2019s nearly impossible to prove that someone suffers from a mental illness. At least that\u2019s according to Development of Treatment Services (DOTS) president Jean Oliver. And she should know, having been through the horror of suicidal urges herself. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-issue","category-september-5-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3879"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3883,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879\/revisions\/3883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSaturday September 8
\n10 am to 1 pm
\nLegislature lawn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"